Tag: adam silvera

From the shapes cast by the green paper lantern, you would never know that there were two boys sitting closely to one another trying to find themselves. You would only see the shadows hugging, indiscriminate.”

Blurb: “Sixteen-year-old Aaron Soto is struggling to find happiness after a family tragedy leaves him reeling. He’s slowly remembering what happiness might feel like this summer with the support of his girlfriend Genevieve, but it’s his new best friend, Thomas, who really gets Aaron to open up about his past and confront his future.

As Thomas and Aaron get closer, Aaron discovers things about himself that threaten to shatter his newfound contentment. A revolutionary memory-alteration procedure, courtesy of the Leteo Institute, might be the way to straighten himself out. But what if it means forgetting who he truly is?”

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, assault, homophobia and self-harm

More Happy Than Not was the first book Adam Silvera released and sadly only found its home in the US book market. As word started to bubble around his stories on the social media channels, his follow up book History Is All You Left Me received a much wider release and was the first book of his that I read. Link to my review of that can be foundhere. Now his debut has found home in the UK and I decided to give it a go.

The Leteo Institutes offer individuals the chance to forget by wiping their memories for a plethora of reasons. There is some exposure to how this affects the wider society such as protests outside the buildings demanding that criminals be banned from using the procedures. But for the most part this initial hook falls by the wayside and is never really mentioned, minus an incident with a friend, until it becomes relevant to Aaron and his story.

Aaron, the protagonist, is a character that I kept going back and forth on. I just didn’t really connect with him, but a lot of that could be down to the fact that, minus questioning your sexuality, I don’t have much in common with a gay sixteen year old boy. Through the course of the story, he struggles a lot: from the aforementioned sexuality, struggles with money and not really coping his dad’s suicide. Then he meets Thomas who starts to take an interest and understands him in a way that Aaron’s friends never cared to. I expected to root for them to be together. But minus Aaron, all the other side characters such as Aaron’s current girlfriend, Gen, felt very flat and two-dimensional.

Instead of asterisks to signify a time jump, emojis were used instead. This might seem a bit out of place but for the respective parts and overall arc, it was a small bit of formatting that made quite an impact.

The first half of this book is a real slog. And I mean it really does drag. At about the 100 page mark I was starting to wonder if anything was actually going to happen, and if I’d been juped. But it is worth persevering for what takes place in the latter half. As I mentioned at the start of the review, there are a lot of triggers: The father’s suicide is mentioned throughout and eventually shown in detail and I wish I’d been made aware of it before reading. There’s homophobic fuelled attacks and a lot of very sad moments but it shows what can happen when someone is pushed to their limits and it’s worth sticking out for. (But of course, please practice self-care!)

The blurb for More Happy Than Not is one of those that really does the book a disservice. It’s raw and emotional at times, and completely surprises you.

“I was the guy in the hot dog tie. You were the guy mailing stuff back to your ex-boyfriend. I loved your laugh. Wish I’d gotten your number. Want to give me a second chance here, universe?”

Blurb: “Arthur is only in New York for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it’s that the universe can deliver a showstopping romance when you least expect it. Ben thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things. But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them?”

*This book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

While being a big Becky Albertalli fan, I’m not that keen on Adam Silvera so when What If It’s Us was announced I was very wary about whether I’d like it or not, but it did feel inevitable that these two authors would come together to co-write a book.

What If It’s Us starts with a meet-cute in a post office and becomes the catalyst for everything that follows in the story. It was an unbelievably adorable moment that has such an impact that when Arthur stupidly forgets to get Ben’s name – let alone his number – he ends up trolling through the internet in the hopes of finding this cute boy again. I adored the internet aspect and think it’s something that will be so relatable to other readers. I found myself willing that one of them would eventually find that virtual breadcrumb that would lead them on the path back to each other.

Ben is a white-passing Puerto-Rican recovering from a break up with his boyfriend who is forced to be around in summer school, which doesn’t really help the “moving on” process. Arthur is in New York for the summer and very much believes in signs from the universe.

My favourite thing about What If It’s Us was the idea of re-doing moments. After their piovetal first meet, Arthur is determined for things to be perfect, while Ben wants to replace memories of his old relationship with a new one. Whenever something goes slightly wrong, they agree to redo it and have several first dates to try and make it the best it can be. When it comes to sex, it was wonderful to see consent discussed and how when one of the boys changes his mind, the other is fully supportive and waits for another time without pressuring him. Everything about the relationship just felt real; there were bumps in the road, miscommunication, worries about what happens after the summer, all of which were nice to see and just showed them growing as a couple. Not all of it is plain sailing as there are moments of homophobia which is a sad reminder than not everyone in society is as accepting as those close to us may be. Another thing I loved was how they were willing to look into each other’s passions (such as Hamilton) to get to know the other person. It was little things like that which had more of an impact than words.

My only real issue was that there didn’t seem to be much distinction in the narratives which was a big shame given how much world/character building there was in the different perspectives. I often found it difficult to work out who I was following and I had to go back to the start of the chapter to check.

Overall What If It’s Us is a ridiculously cute story that shows the power of the universe, and fighting for what you love.

We’ve officially reached the mid-way point in the year, which is a mixture of exciting and terrifying! So it’s time to reflect on all the bookish adventures I’ve had so far.

Best Sequel Of The Year So Far

This one is actually a bit of a cop-out as I’ve only read two sequels this year and this one was a reread. As you’re probably aware, it’s the second book in The Maze Runner series and after falling into my hole at the start of the year when the final film adaptation was released, I decided to give the whole series a reread. It’s definitely one of my favourites in the series.

New Release You Haven’t Read Yet But Want To

Noah Can’t Even was one of my favourite books of last year and when I found out there was going to be a sequel, I did a lot of running around and screaming. The first book is about a boy called Noah discovering and exploring his sexuality and it’s by a British author! It’s hysterical, cringy and just brilliant so I can’t wait to see what adventures Noah goes on in this one.

Most Anticipated For Autumn/Winter

It is a known fact that I adore Becky Albertalli… but also that I am not the biggest fan of Adam Silvera, so it’s no surprise that the book I’m looking forward is What If It’s Us? I don’t know much about it except that it’s about two boys and all the possibilities of their lives together.

Biggest Disappointment Of The Year So Far

As a big lover of both Tom and Giovanna’s individual works, I was both excited and nervous to hear that they were moving into the realms of Young Adult fiction. Sadly, it’s not that great. The narrators for the audiobook don’t really add anything to the characters, it’s badly written, and just… well, boring.

Biggest Surprise Of The Year So Far

How To Stop Time was a Christmas present from a friend and not the sort of book I would have picked up of my own accord. It’s about a man who’s lived for centuries and is struggling to find his place in the world now that everyone he’s loved has passed away. It’s beautiful, emotional and raises the questions of who we are outside of our connections to other people.

New Favourite Author

All it took was “The Hunger Games meets Jurassic Park” for me to pick up a copy of The Extinction Trials. It’s a world of two continents: one populated by humans, the other by dinosaurs. It’s action packed and utterly brilliant and I’m down for any other books S.M. Wilson may release!

Newest Favourite Character

This isn’t really a new character, but I started the series last year and I just utterly adore Lara Jean. She’s so caring and loves her family and it just trying to stay true to herself.

Book That Made You Cry

I heard about this book when Patrisse was on the Mostly Lit podcast talking about her life and the Black Lives Matter movement which she co-founded. I listened to the audiobook as I feel this is the best way to consume non-fiction. There are many exhausting moments of this book as Patrisse talks about her life but one chapter about the treatment of her brother regarding his mental health just had me sobbing. If you pick up one book this year, make it this one.Book That Made You Happy

Oi Goat was one of the World Book Day titles and just made me grin reading it. The frog in the story is teaching all the different things animals have dressed up as for World Book Day such as “otters dressed as Harry Potters.”

“If bringing up the past annoys you now – as I know it did when you left New York for California – know that I’m sorry, but please don’t be mad at me for reliving all of it. History is all you left me.”

Blurb: “When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.”

Adam Silvera is another author who’s quite popular within the book community but I’d never read before. The reason for that is, in part, due to the fact that his debut More Happy Than Not is actually available in the UK. I started to hear about History Is All You Left Me frequently as the hype for his new book started to bubble. However, I wasn’t really sold on it until he posted a video on his YouTube channel where he read the first chapter of the book. After that, the book sat patiently on my “to read” list as the release date drew closer.

The story follows a boy called Griffin who is about to attend the funeral of his ex-boyfriend Theo and the narrative flits between the past and present, building up a picture of their lives together from friendship to their relationship, what happened after they split up and then, inevitably, how Theo died. Griffin speaks directly to Theo throughout the book almost like a long letter that he will never get to read and that aspect added extra emotion and heartbreak to the story, especially when Griffin comes face to face with Jackson; Theo’s current boyfriend.

History Is All You Left Me is an incredibly bittersweet story. The reader gets the joys of seeing the relationship between these two characters form, the duo coming out to each other, first dates, first time having sex (which is very realistic and positive might I add) and there’s even an incredibly awkward scene where they buy condoms together only to bump into someone they know in the store. There are segments where Griffin discusses his OCD and how Theo helps him and discussions of Theo’s bisexuality (I really feel like 2017 is finally going to be the year for more bisexual characters) and relationship issues are really dealt with rather than being left to fester. It’s all truly wonderful and heart-warming to read until you’re hit in the face with a present day chapter and you, along with Griffin, remember that Theo is no longer alive.

Something I found rather unexpected was Griffin and Jackson finding solace in each other, despite having been previous quite averse to each other. They both share that loss of love even though they have different memories of Theo and Griffin even expresses that he feels Jackson is the only one who truly knows what he’s going through; how big of an imprint Theo has left on their lives.

I couldn’t work out whether I liked Griffin or not. Through his narrative you can really feel how much he cared for this other person, even after Theo had moved on to someone else. Griffin made a lot of sacrifices for Theo and that loss ran so deep and it’s really gut-wrenching to read in the present chapters. However, he made some choices out of spite and ignorance to sort of “get back” at Theo which I didn’t like and he treated a lot of other characters badly, but maybe that was just part of his healing process.

I did find the book to be very slow moving at points but that’s to be expected as this is a story not just about reliving memories, but the process of moving on and adapting to a part of life where there won’t be new memories created with the person no longer alive.

This week I’m going to end on a heart-breaking quote from the book:

“I don’t know what will be left of me if love and grief can’t bring you back.”